


Reylo: This Is How It's Meant to Be

by The_Hobbit_Ninja



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo's perspective, Cannon, Kylo Ren - Freeform, Love Story, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Retelling, Romance, rey/ben solo - Freeform, star wars sequel trilogy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24658993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Hobbit_Ninja/pseuds/The_Hobbit_Ninja
Summary: Reylo development from Ben Solo's perspective:D
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second Reylo fic, for another longer one that alternates between perspectives check out my other works! I would SOOOO APPRECIATE some comments from you guys!!! <3 I will be updating with more chapters, so check back and let me know if you like it and want more! These chapters are very short, I may expand them at some point.

Rage in my chest, but curiosity surfacing without permission. I drag the petrified messenger into my grip with a flick of my wrist.  
"WHAT GIRL?"  
Here she is in the forest, small, slight, scared but defiant. Rey, I've heard. No, I won't think it. I won't-  
Beautiful.  
I breathe in sharply and mentally berate myself. She is an enemy. A rebel. Nothing else about her matters.  
I stretch out my hand and she involuntarily stiffens as I hold her in place with an energy I can tell is new to her.  
"So this is the girl I've heard so much about."  
It's not as if I don't have a hundred storm troopers waiting for my orders, ready to drag her onto the ship at a word from me, but I realize I don't want them to. I won't let her see that I'm confused, on edge, but the thought surfaces in my mind like oil in water.  
I don't want them to be rough with her, to throw her around like they did with the Resistance pilot just a few days ago. No, I want to do this myself. Why? Just a feeling.  
I release her and let her fall into my arms, supporting her light weight and cradling her against me like a child fast asleep. I shouldn't be doing this. Carrying an enemy into my ship? I shouldn't like this feeling. Why do I?  
Once on the ship, I take her to the interrogation chambers and click her into the chair contraption. I have things to do, plans to make, people to command. But instead I find myself just watching her sleep, watching the rise and fall of her chest.  
She wakes with a jolt, sees me watching her. "Where am I?" There's a quiver in her voice. "You're my guest." She calls me a creature, in a mask. I take it off, slow, deliberate. I see her eyes rake down my body for a moment before snapping back to hold my gaze. I find myself taking a CONVERSATIONAL tone with her! What is wrong with me? In a moment I can tell she won't willingly give up any information. I reach out my hand and channel my energy into her mind. Her thoughts flee before my presence, but they can't escape. "You're so lonely. At night, desperate to sleep." My tone is low, almost soothing. She is...different...from everyone else. I kneel beside her, my hand no more than an inch from her face. My fingers tingle. It takes an unreasonable amount of self control not to pull my gloves off and run my fingers softly down her face. Why?  
There's Han Solo. I can tell that he loves her, and I feel a sharp prick of old abandonment. She feels it. Her will is strong, bending my power back at me. How? The small scavenger girl-  
My thoughts are cut off with an effort to keep her out of my head, but she gets there anyway. The fear I have never allowed anyone to see is vulnerable to her. My shaken surprise is clear to her, and it gives her confidence. I hate what she's seeing, but she can't see the tiny glimmer of relief in the corner of my mind. Here is someone who could understand me. Here is someone...like me. I crush the thought.

*****

"You need a teacher!" My voice cuts through the cold air and the hum or our lightsabers. Rey leans back, her eyes drifting closed. I'm exhausted from our lightsaber fight, but I feel somehow a heightened sense of...of...aliveness. Her eyes are shut, her position vulnerable. I could kill her, right now. But instead, as her face relaxes, I feel hyper-aware of her closeness. Physical contact is not something I experience often...correction...ever. In the moment, I don't want to kill her.   
I wan't to kis- No. I will NOT allow myself to want that. And then her shining eyes open, and she attacks once again. Why do I feel a twinge of betrayal? The adrenaline of a fight comes flooding back, partially drowning out that irrational clawing desire for something I shouldn't want, and will never have.


	2. Chapter 2

I sit in the cold black and white First Order headquarters, but I'm absorbed in the little stone hut on the island in the middle of nowhere. I see her so clearly. This connection, whatever it is...I can't

pretend I don't like it. She's relating her experience in the cave, her face animated in memory. I hold her gaze, her hazel eyes--absorbing, intoxicating. That word again, that hated word that I try to

drown out every time I see her. Beautiful. Her story comes to an end. 

"I felt so alone."

Her voice breaks. 

"You're not alone." 

The words sound so right as I say them. 

"Neither are you." 

A warmth I've never felt fills me. Her hand reaches out from beneath the thin rough blanket wrapped around her slight body. I slip off the black glove, and allow my bare hand to stretch out to meet

hers, our fingers tentatively drifting closer in whatever parallel reality we're in. I can pick out the exact millisecond that our fingers touch. I feel a rush like no other, a thrill of pleasure, a feeling inexplicable but suddenly completely necessary. She breathes in sharply. Does she feel the same thing?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so this is the whole throne room scene through Ben's eyes. I was always curious and suspicious about the so-called "training" that Kylo went through at Snoke's hands (mentioned in TFA), so I wrote a bit about that in here (how I picture it). Pleeeease let me know what you think!!! Literally every single comment I get makes my entire day brighter (I know it sounds cheesy but it's true!). <3

How could I have brought her here? She came to me like I knew she would. And I brought her here, to the master I've been conditioned to serve with a twisted loyalty. I've been used and manipulated by this very hideous thing I brought Rey to since the age of fifteen. And a decade later, the first good thing has come into my life since Luke's slashing betrayal and my surrender to Snoke's insatiable demands and sneaking power over me, I gave her to him. When she came I didn't even feel conflicted. Just numb. My agonizing years of conditioning designed to beat me into numb submission and poison me with false confidence simultaneously, completed with mental and physical torture and complete deprivation from real human connection surface in my mind. The "training" apparently paid off. I gave her up to him. Could one call it willingly?

My master whips her around the room, roughly, his motions purposeless, just to break her. She cries out in anger and pain and I feel the stab in my chest. I see him draw her to him and cup the side of her face in his mangled hand. I want to tear her from him, to scream "Don't you dare touch her!" but I feel frozen. I hear the despised thing in front of me commanding her; "Give...Me...EVERYTHING." He tosses her into the air, and rips her thoughts from her mind. She screams, a sound of combined epic struggle to keep her will from breaking and pure agony. I feel as if I am witnessing violent rape. And I did this. I DID THIS! WHY?!? My vision blurs. I haven't cried in ten years, not since the first day of Snoke's "training", beaten, exhausted, disappointed beyond words, blinded by physical pain and gripping fear. I will not cry. I Won't. I Won't. I Can't. This is the only phrase I can manage, and it spins around in my head. I could have left with her when she came, I could have rested with the only truly good person I've met in years. I could have left this monster. I could have rebuilt Ben for her. But instead I stand, frozen, powerless, hating myself with every fiber of my being as her tortured screams rip through me like a knife of crystallized guilt. Finally he releases her, and she falls to the floor, gasping for breath. 

I hear my master clearly, and yet as if he is miles away. He commands me to kill her. To kill this thing of light, this girl that I lov-

I can't! I can't love her! 

My mind reels, the two halves of myself doing battle furiously. I can't blow out this beautiful candle, snuff out my only hope. But I have to! The light would never accept me now, not as I am, even with her. Even if by some miracle she still wants me. But I can't. But the dark is all I know now. But I just can't do it. I don't have the strength to do it. Or perhaps I don't have the strength NOT to do it? I must. I can't! The tears won't fall, but if they started they might never stop. 

I hear my master saying something, but it doesn't register. Then, "He turns the lightsaber to strike true...And KILLS HIS TRUE ENEMY!"

With those words the storm vanishes. My true enemy. I twitch my fingers. The blue flame burns through my only true enemy. 

I would give anything to freeze the moment Rey rises, the look in her eyes as she meets mine. I can't describe it, but I need it. Desperately. 

We take out the Red Guard together, one by one, till we stand alone in the midst of the smoldering wreck. I feel...free is the wrong word. I feel like I could be a blank slate if I chose. Correction, if she chose me. 

I turn to her. "Rey...It's time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the rebels. Let it all die. Rey, I want you to join me. We could rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy!"

I see the light of joy die in her eyes. I barely catch her words. "Ben...Don't do this. Please don't go this way."

I find myself suddenly gripped in blinding anger, not at her, just at the sudden realization that hope is gone. 

I try once more to convince her, a note of pleading that I can't crush edging my voice.

"No, you're still holding on! Let go!" I didn't mean to yell but that's what I hear. 

"Do you want to know the truth about your parents? Or have you always known. You've just hidden it away. You know the truth. Say it." She doesn't move. "Say it." 

"They were nobody." Her voice catches and tears salt her cheeks unchecked. 

"They were filthy junk traders, who sold you off for drinking money! They're dead, in a pauper's grave in the Jakku dessert." As I say it I hate it. How could I have struck such a low blow? 

"You have no place in this story. You come from nothing, you're nothing. But not to me."

I extend my gloved hand. "Join me. Please." When was the last time I used that simple word?

Her hand twitches, starts to rise. My glimmer of hope sparks again. 

But then I feel the lightsaber ripped from my hand. In that moment there is not one single thing in any galaxy that I do not hate, blindly, passionately. I am not good enough for her. Of course I'm not! I just insulted her in an attempt to bully her into accepting me! I am a broken monster. I destroy everything I touch, make those I love hate me, and then hate them back. I just told her she is nothing. Now I see the picture clearly. I am nothing. She is everything.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in this chapter I explore the Death Star ocean scene. It seemed like Kylo had some pretty intense and conflicted feelings going on during, so I tried to capture that. Also I wanted to go into a little more detail about his previous trauma, which I feel was grossly neglected in the films. Drop me a comment and let me know how I did!! <3

I hold the Wayfinder in my hand. It looks solid but feels fragile; I can crush it if I want to. She stands erect, alert, eyes shining like cold steel. She's poised to snap into action, every line of her body pulled tight. I can't stop my eyes from wandering over her. I feel a strange fluttering sensation in the pit of my stomach...as much as I wish I could, I can't say I don't like the feeling. I feel an intense urge to take the few steps necessary steps to close the distance between us, to-

I try to crush these pleasant musings with the cruel reality that plagues me every day. I am not good enough for her. I am a monster. I force myself to say it in my head, plain and clear, burn it into my mind: I am a monster. Whether I want to be or not is now irrelevant. I will never have her, because I am irreparably deficient. I am nothing. 

She demands the Wayfinder. 

"The only way you'll get to Exagul is with me." I smash the small pyramid map in my hand, loving and hating the strength that makes it possible. I want to remember how to be gentle. I want to remember how to be Ben. "But that hope is lost", I think with a stab of misery. She screams, and immediately comes at me with her blue flame. I dodge around her, ducking and twitching sideways around her crackling strokes. I don't want to fight, I want to do other things...

Dammit what is wrong with me?!? I internally shut myself up.

Eventually I have to meet her blade with my own. The adrenaline kicks in, and then there's not room to think about anything. In an odd way, this is an incredible relief. Mortal combat with Rey is exponentially easier than sorting through my tangled feelings around this girl who I am ordered to kill but want to kiss. I hate that I just thought that. 

We perform a poisonous dance across the wreckage of my grandfather's empire, half-drowned in the ocean. I always have had a dark fascination with that empire. It has caused me nothing but pain but I can't stop trying to recreate it. I hate this. My brain is on fire. In the decade of my life in the First Order, no one, excluding Snoke and the Red Guard he used to "train" me, has ever really shaken me. But around this girl, a small untrained scavenger from nowhere, I can't keep my thoughts in order. And I know my thoughts show through my eyes, my only external giveaway that I absolutely cannot control. She sees right through me, and I LIKE IT! HOW?? An enemy can pinpoint my weaknesses and I like it. Even in the middle of a literal fight for my life, I doubt my will to overcome my opponent. 

Finally I have her on the ground, defenseless, her life in my hands to crush or spare. And then I hear it.

My mother. 

"Ben..." she whispers. I am stunned, about to crack. I am breaking. In that moment I feel fifteen again. In a split second I see a host of images, images that I banished, that Snoke literally and figuratively beat out of me, scenes that spark emotions I swore never to feel again. I see dad telling me to take care of myself, that I'd have to be a man and try not to miss them. His words had sounded blunt and harsh, but his quick blinks and wet eyes gave him away. I feel my mom's last hug, smell her perfume, like lavender and soap and the morning breeze. I am hit with the emotion from that day. On the way to the academy I had fought back tears only semi-successfully. "They don't want me" I had thought. "They'd raised their surprise kid for fifteen years and want Luke to finish the unwanted job." I see, with blinding accuracy, Luke standing over me, green light illuminating his face, looking twisted and sick. I feel the stab of betrayal, the panic, the cold blast of hatred. And then it's gone.

It's all gone.

My mother's last breath is a pain I've never felt. It's followed up immediately by an excruciating physical one. I look down to see Rey holding my own crackling lightsaber, burnt through me. I fall to the ground. Every breath feels like hot ash in my throat. I expect Rey to finish the job, given that clearly whatever connection I deceived myself with means nothing to her anymore, which comes as no surprise. But instead of the blinding pain and subsequent oblivion I brace myself for, I feel instead an indescribable tingling sensation spreading through my rib cage, cooling my burning lungs. As the nerve endings repair, I feel her small hand laid over my jacket, channeling the energy that heals me. I look into her eyes. Her face is so incredibly conflicted It hurts to look at, tears streaming down her face already dripping with salt water, a battle raging in her hazel eyes. 

"I did want to take your hand...Ben's hand."

Her words heal something more important than a skin-deep burn. The fluttering feeling in my stomach is back. I allow it this time, let it linger. She leaves me, on the wreckage of that filthy empire, alone.

Alone, but Free.


	5. Chapter 5

I sprint under the ominous ledge crackling with blue lightning. I need to get to her. In the corner of my mind, through the remnant of connection we retain, I can see her, shadowy but solid, a point of light in a sea of darkness. She cannot win this fight alone, and she cannot die. Thus I am here to fight with her, and probably die. I don't care if I live or not. I killed Kylo Ren to resurrect my parent's son, and I will gladly let Ben die for this girl I love. I don't try to hide it from myself any longer. I love her, desperately, blindly, with the whole-hearted love of the fifteen-year-old boy I was before...before. I free fall into Palpatine's cave, hoping that whatever I land on is not rock. I land on rock. "Ow." the wind is knocked out of me but miraculously my bones aren't shattered. Suddenly I feel them, the Knights of Ren, the warriors that Snoke trained and entrusted to me. But they are eternally loyal to him, not me, and unarmed as I am I don't stand a chance against them. I feel my hands shaking violently, not because I'm afraid of death, but because I must get to her, and I am afraid that if I die here I will die utterly useless. 

The Knights of Ren encircle me, pacing around like vultures wheeling around an animal on the edge of its last breath. I am at their non-existent mercy. I gasp as something punishingly hard slams into my back. I don't have time to blink before I'm slapped across the face. The butte of a cruel-looking ax smashes into my rib cage. I don't think I'll ever get oxygen into my lungs again. I fall to my knees as I'm beaten, images flashing before my clouding vision. Reality becomes hazy and not even pain registers. Shapes move but all I can feel is a panicked sense of urgency to do something that my mind can't quite grab a hold of. 

And then I see her. Blue silhouetted against palpable black. Beautiful. She has Luke's lightsaber raised, as if to bring its full might down upon the emperor. But I see her eyes, and they are only gently questioning, silently asking me if I've found Ben and brought him to her. I nod slightly, knowing in a sudden flash of joy that she will believe me. She pulls the blue flame behind her as if to strike, but instead she draws her hand back empty, a look of combined glowing peace and blazing defiance in her pale face. I feel the familiar cold cylinder in my hand, feel the sizzling heat at my disposal. I feel a new kind of power flowing through me, something I can only describe as...Light. 

I cut through the Knights like they are nothing, and they scatter as straws in the wind. I sprint past them, an exhilarating high propelling me through the pain of a few moments ago. Finally I reach her, am standing not six feet from her. Rey. As our eyes meet I have no doubt. This is how it's meant to be. 

We turn, crackling blue illuminating the two of us in the cavern of unspeakable blackness. 

"Stand together, die together." The emperor's mangled voice slithers through the air. I could laugh out loud. Is that meant to make us fear him? The fool! I CAME TO DIE TOGETHER. 

But as we stand, braced for anything, Palpatine gasps. 

"A dyad, in the Force. A power like life itself." 

His shriveled hands rejuvenate. I feel an invisible power literally bring us to our knees, snapping my head back. I see Rey out of the corner of my eye, suspended in the same unnatural position. True to her passionate nature she struggles against the unbreakable bonds, but of course can't break free from this indescribable evil. 

Then I feel half my life being sucked from my body. A pain like no other, every nerve ending lit on fire, my consciousness cowering before this raw hatred, but the true agony is feeling her taken from me. A dyad is two, that are One. And he is cutting her out of me, feeding his life Force with our connection, eating away at the bond that finally killed Kylo and saved Ben. 

Finally we are released, and the fire turns to ice, a penetrating cold seeping into every vein. My brain is numb, but my mission persists, and I feel myself staggering to my feet. I have no idea what I could possibly do but I'll do it. Before I have time to even summon the energy to call the saber to me, I feel a constricting Force yank me into the air, and then fling me away like a feather in a gale. A crash, blinding pain, and then oblivion.


End file.
